Mentality from an Outsider
“R,e,s, p, e, c, t, find out what it means to me,” are famous lines from Aretha Franklin’s smash hit Respect. Those lyrics can be applied to the city of Detroit as well. Detroit had the respect of America. It was a city full of opportunity, a city where immigrants from all around the world could come and find work, a city full of innovators. Now, America considers Detroit as the gum on the bottom of your shoes. So, how has Detroit’s mentality changed? In what ways has the culture and personality of Detroit evolved, they were once on the top of the mountain, but now they are fighting to make it up the hill. Detroit made its name on being different. Thinking, practicing, and implementing new ideas that were different from
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The assembly line, Model T, and Motown music are all examples of creative ideas and that changed Detroit’s culture permanently. Those ideas were not hail marys. People did not view the assembly line or Model T as something that saved the city of Detroit. The city as a whole did not look for hail marys, they looked for ideas and projects that would improve Detroit’s culture and society.
Present day, Detroit is focused on getting a hail mary. People think the hail mary may be the removal of NAFTA, creating autonomous cars, or winning the second location of Amazon headquarters. Detroit is caught up in Hail Marys and because of that it’s not making small but meaningful improvements to its society. Detroit is not taking it one step at a time, it’s waiting to take a gigantic leap that may never come. The sad thing is that those giant leaps usually never work. In the 1950’s, Detroit was the person who would get roaring drunk at